Any one who has ever achieved some level of success, whether in their personal lives or in their chosen careers and businesses, will tell you that one of the things that put them where they are right now is persistence – the doggedness to keep at it until they get what they were aiming for.

It doesn’t matter how many times you fall, what matters is that you get up each time you do.  Consider the diligence of the ants who, despite their size, manage to carry heavy loads just so they can experience abundance especially on rainy days.  Imagine what people can achieve if only they stay focused on their goals no matter how heavy the obstacles.

The Formula for Success

There is no foolproof formula for anything, much less success.  However, there is a foolproof way of achieving success, and that is to persevere and be consistent in your perseverance.  True, there will be times when you may feel that you’re just about ready to give up on your dreams, especially if you’ve reached your golden years without ever having seen your dreams come into fruition.

But one must remember that it is when you are just about ready to throw in the towel that the tide will turn and you will see the rewards of your labor.  They may not come in the exact package that you imagined, but rest assured that no hard work is left unappreciated and unrewarded for long.  Sooner or later, you will see the fruits of your labor.

The Greatest Inventors of Our Times

Consider Edison who discovered more than a hundred ways how not to light a bulb before getting it right or Einstein who discovered all the wrong formulas before discovering that E=mc².

No successful venture ever succeeded at the first try.  If you read about all the greatest minds and inventors from the time of our forefathers to the present, you will read about how many times they had their hopes crashed and hearts broken before finally coming up with the right formula for their version of success.

In the end, what you may call success is actually the number of times you failed where each time brought you closer to the fulfillment of your dreams.  Remember that failures are only such if you don’t learn from them.  But if you use each one as another rung on the ladder of success, then you have already achieved half of your goal.

For any business to grow, the owner is expected to make presentations in front of a large audience when they introduce their product or service to the market, so they should remember that it is also in the way they deliver their presentations that can make or break a new product.  Here are 10 tips if you want to enhance your presentation skills.

1. Practice makes perfect.

Practice is really important if you want to be a success in your presentation.  You can practice in front of a mirror or in front of your families and friends before the presentation and get feedbacks from them.

2. Always check your materials.

You should always double check your materials and see if it is to your liking.  You should also be confident about your presentation materials and that they are clear and direct to the point.

3. Have the right attitude. 

Having the right attitude as you deliver your presentation is important.  It conveys strength as well as belief in what you are selling.  You also need a positive attitude when you give presentations.

4. Be confident.

Of course, it is very important that you are confident.  If you are nervous and it shows in your presentation, it will convey that you have not prepared for your presentation.

5. Your voice is important.

The tone of your voice can definitely affect your presentation.  Make sure that it is not too loud or too soft.  The tone and pitch should also be pleasing to the ears as well as the pacing of words.

6. Your body gestures are important.

You can convey your message confidently through your body movements.  Practice this also with your friends and in front of a mirror.  Remember, a good posture speaks well of the speaker.

7. It is important to have eye contact.

This is also important as having eye contact with your audience conveys that you are a confident person and that you are open to suggestions and comments.

8. Do not let the room affect you.

The room you will be giving your presentation in can affect you.  So, when practicing, already imagine a large room with a lot of people listening to you.

9. Think of your audience as friends. 

Your audience matters.  It will not hurt if you see them as friends, not as audiences.  Through this, you will be more comfortable as well as more confident.

10. Get your message across. 

The message you will give them about your presentation should be clear and concise.  Do away with a lot of clichés in your presentation.  Instead, make it simple, clear, and direct so that your audience can relate to it.

Being successful is not just about having the best of luck.  In fact, it is a lot of things.  Success, in truth, is dependent on factors, be it internal or external.  One of them is trust.  I know it sounds so cliché when you hear that, in order for you to be successful, you have to build trust.

Why Build Trust?

Look at it this way.  If you are new to the business and you want to sell your products, you do not just thrust it at your customers and sell it to them at face value.  No.  You have to slowly introduce your product or service to your target market, telling the customers of the many benefits they will get from your products and how advantageous they are from your competitors.  Knowing about your products, how they work, and what good it will give them will definitely give you an edge over your competitors as you begin to earn your potential customers’ trust.

Building and Earning Trust

Once they know about you and your products and services, one way of getting and keeping the trust that is so important for any business to succeed is to do a lot of promotions.  A good way to promote your product is by giving away free gifts.  Free gifts come in a lot of forms.  It can be key chains with your company logo on it and a sentence about your product, or it can also be T-shirts or caps that have your company name written on them.  If your product is of the consumable kind, like a cake or a cookie, one way of earning customers’ trust is by letting them have a free taste.  Set up a small booth in a mall and start from there.  I bet one of those many potential customers who have tasted your product will want to bring one home, and if they really liked it, they will share it with their friends and families.

Selling the Product 

Now that your potential target market knows of your products and services, you have to advertise aggressively to sell your product.  You have to be active and let your customers know that your product will always be there for them.  Know that your competitors will always be watching the market, so you have to always be updated.  One way of doing so is by researching about the market and what it wants and needs, and when you know it, go with the trend, but do it in a way that is uniquely yours to keep your current customers and potentially gain new ones.

Hollywood is chock full of stereotypical career-oriented men and women. They’re usually very intelligent, good-looking, sociable, emotionally stable, well-off, and fashionable. They can balance their time between their perfect family and dream job, do several things at once, and do multitasking to fit 36 hours’ work into a single day.

But you know that you’re probably not that kind of person. Heck, nobody’s that kind of person. Sure, you’re intelligent to some degree and possess a mix of the characteristics above, but you’re probably nowhere near any definition of ‘perfect.’ The image of a perfect employee might get you up the company ladder the fastest, but using a bit of your social skills ranks right up there with it.

The Pros of PR

Many of the most successful people in the world are probably intelligent, but you can bet that they didn’t get to their current stature using only intelligence. A person’s social skills very often contribute a lot to that person’s success in life. Finding the right connections, building the right relationships, and making friends in the right places might sound a bit unscrupulous to you, but they’re very legitimate business practices.

Business and employment is all about a give-and-take relationship between provider and client, so it’s no wonder that social skills can play a big part in both. Maximizing your connections for your success can range anywhere from getting a friendly tip about which job to get to asking for favorable feedback for promotion. It won’t do your career any good, even if you’re really intelligent, if you’re not sociable to your superiors, your coworkers, and your subordinates.

Gaining with a Group

Another big reason why sociability is effectively required in building your career is that you’ll most probably end up working with a team or group. Many of the projects and tasks you’ll encounter along the way are probably too large for you, so you’ll have to join or form a group to tackle it. If the other members of that group aren’t even on friendly speaking terms with you, it’ll be a wonder if the project you’re working on will take off. Whether you’re leading the group or working along with it, you will have to bring out some of those social skills to make your methods more efficient and your work easier.

If you thought that socialization was only for those with too many words to say and too much time to spend, you were under a very big misconception. Because you’ll obviously be encountering a lot of other people in the workplace, your social skills become an important factor in the speed of your progress. That is, if you didn’t think they were important in the first place.

Let’s face it, whatever field your business might be in right now, there are a lot of key players, and some may be even better than you – for the time being.  In any business endeavor, it is always a must to know your competitors, from their movements to strategies; your market, from their needs to income bracket; and the latest trending in your industry.

These are important factors to consider when formulating your next move or coming up with innovations to make your product or service more appealing to your target market.  Bear in mind that your market has changing needs, and any type of industry is forever shifting their focus, so to keep up to date with the changing times, you have to go with the flow without compromising your quality and uniqueness.

Marketing Strategies

Don’t overlook the importance of your marketing strategy in achieving the goals you have set for your company.  Often, people think that putting money in marketing is a waste of resources because they believe that their product or service alone can already speak for themselves.

Often, too, this same misconception leads to the demise of an otherwise promising product or service.  Understand that most successful companies pay a lot of money to advertising agencies and marketing consultants to ensure that not only is the right market targeted but that the same market will take the bait and avail of whatever it is you are offering.

Customer Satisfaction

Besides putting effort in conceptualizing and implementing your marketing campaign, you should also put extra effort in training and developing your Customer Service Department because this is where your customers will run to should they encounter questions and/or problems about your product/service.

A disgruntled customer, whose questions were left unanswered or whose phone call was queued up so long that they end up putting down the phone, will never return to get more of your products or services.  Worse, they could tell their family and friends how poorly they’ve been treated by your company and that could lead to the end of you.

In the end, showing your market the difference between you and your competitors can either spell success or failure for you.  Lower costs, better quality, effective marketing campaigns, and customer satisfaction are all key factors in the success of your business.

It’s a collective effort that your market will find irresistible if you know how to mix everything in one perfect blend.

A pessimist will see every situation and circumstance as a plot for him to not achieve whatever it is he has dreamed of in life. An optimist will see everything else as an opportunity to be more, grow more, and get closer to his goals. No matter what social echelon you were born in, if you are a pessimist, chances are, you will never amount to anything; and if you are an optimist, the sky’s the limit when it comes to fulfilling your dreams.

How many success stories have you heard or read about where the protagonist didn’t finish school, was bullied in school, perhaps beaten black and blue at home, and barely had anything to eat most his life? Yet, the same protagonist beat the odds and emerged victorious in that he not only has financial freedom now, but he also has built a happy family where there once was none.

Born with a Silver Spoon in the Mouth

However, let us not ignore the fact that people who are born into rich families do have better chances of gaining financial success early on in life because they either go into the family business or they have more than enough means to build their own businesses.

They also have better opportunities to finish school in prestigious universities and go after any type of education they want because money is no object. But, without the right frame of mind and the kind of focus that success expects from all of us, any opportunity can turn into a total waste of time, effort, and resources.

From Humble Beginnings

Then there is the other side of the story where someone from a totally different background, one who didn’t have the same opportunities as even the average person, someone who’s situation seem so desolate that we think if we were in the same situation we would rather die, turned his life around and became one of the most successful people on the planet.

Think Oprah. Think Bill Gates. Both from different backgrounds, both faced with insurmountable obstacles early on in life, and both emerging as two of the most influential, not to mention rich, people in the whole world.

While it is true that people who are born rich may have better financial freedom to chase after their dreams, having money is not enough to achieve success in any aspect of your life. Success is looking at the storm as an opportunity to sell umbrellas instead of wishing for better weather.

Patience is a virtue, as the saying goes. In any aspect of your life, your patience will always be tested, and it is in how you respond to these tests that will ultimately affect the outcome. Act harshly, and you pay the price. Be patient and think things over, and reward is yours. The same thing can be said when it comes to businesses, especially new businesses or companies.

The Long Road Ahead

Success cannot be had in terms of seconds or minutes or hours or days. It will take months or even years before you can truly say that success is yours and that you had it through your sweats and tears.

For new business owners, however much they have prepared for their business, they should always think that success will not happen overnight. Your first day might be great as there are curious customers who will want to know about you, but if you do not keep their attention, then you will lose their interest. So, give your business some time to grow and be successful, and do not expect that great things will happen that quickly if you have only sat on your seat and waited for the apple to drop. It takes two to tango, as they say, and your new business will need your patience in order to survive and be successful one day. Always study the market and grow with it.

Working It

Diligence and a lot of patience is what any business should have. You will come against so many obstacles at first that it might make you fall on your knees in despair and will make you want to give up, but do not be overcome by this. Instead, stand up, breathe deep, and face whatever it is. Do not hide from it as hiding will not make it go away. It only prolongs the agony, and you will still have to decide.

You have to know that trials and obstacles come with any new business, be it small or large, and it is in knowing this that you are given the power to decide on the outcome that you want. Give up or fight. If you want to fight, then start working hard. Double your efforts and lengthen your patience. Think with a clear head and not give up. In the end, your success will be sweeter especially if you gained it through sweat and tears.

Every Wednesday, I will try to interview a person who in my opinion is working to be successful or has become successful. I will be doing this to show you that being successful is a choice! Today we are going to speak with Jason Pereira about his success so far in online money making. Like him you can choose to start working towards making money online

Gaetano - Thanks Jason for accepting our invitation and agreed to be interview by SuccessfulFootsteps.com. For our readers who are not familiar with you could you please introduce yourself?

Hey Gaetano – sure, no problem. Doubt anyone would be familiar with me, but anyways, here we go J. I’m Jason Pereira, a sixteen year old University student. I live in Dubai, and run my ever growing blog The University Kid Dot Com.

Gaetano - Great! Could you please go back to the very start. Can you recall the first time you got interested in making money online? What was the first attempt to make money and how did it go?

I had some time to kill in the summer, so decided to spend it trying to make some money online. One of the (only J) skills I am blessed with is a gift for writing, so I thought I might as well put that to good use.

My first experience at making money online was not a good one. I ended up writing those spammy articles only for SEO at a mere $2/500 words – they were not fun to do, and did not improve me in any way either. They did however allow me to get the necessary start up capital for my first domain name and hosting, and it was a valuable learning experience to get rid of my naivety at that early stage.

Gaetano - Today you blog at theuniversitykid.com for money. Can you please tell us something about theuniversitykid.com and what business you have you tried? Could you summaries your success for our readers?

I don’t really blog at TUK for money, to be honest – the cash I make out of it relative to the time I put in is minimal. I do however blog to try and gain a (slowly increasing) community of valued readers, ones that I can hopefully help learn some ways to make money online.

The University Kid was originally started on a whim, as part of a contest between friends (that has now died down). After settling down, I ran a couple of contests (one of which for $150 is going on at this moment) in order to build readers, RSS subscribers, comments and various other metrics that define a successful blog. It is currently a medium sized blog… I’m going to take it much, much further.

Gaetano - What was the biggest challenge you have ever faced in making money online? How did you go about solving it?

The biggest challenge I faced was probably my naivety, and working for rates way below what I was worth just because I was too inexperienced.

Not knowing the workings of the Internet is probably another thing – I had no idea what GoDaddy was or that we could actually buy a domain name. Hehe !

Gaetano - Jason, what do you suggest to our readers who are trying to startup their own online business?

I’d recommend they go slowly, do one thing at a time, and engage in a little bit of the ‘dirty work’ they need to get their initial capital up. Not at the low level that I started up, but things like forum posting, paid blog posting services and various other low capital activities like domain flipping can help a total beginner to the online world.

I’d also recommend they find someone that will help them along, and stick to that person like glue. There are a lot of scammers and other dishonest people on the internet, and without experience a complete newcomer can suffer.

Gaetano - Jason, what is in your opinion the most common mistake that online startups do?

People try to do too many things too fast. People aim at starting the next million dollar website, when they first need to look at the next hundred dollar website.

Also, don’t get too much into the whole online thing. Take a break every so often, go out and do stuff. Remember, if you’re not having fun, it’s not worth doing.

Gaetano – Jason, thank you very much for accepting our invitation. Everyone go to www.theuniversitykid.com

No problem, and cheers for the multiple plugs. Good luck with the site! J

People have different definitions of success.  Success can be based on how close a person is to his/her goal.  We cannot fully comprehend the meaning of success as only the person who achieved his optimum mission and goal in life can say that he/she is successful.

Different Success for Different Stages in Life

Success depends on one’s own sound judgment and decision-making as well as his/her perseverance and enthusiasm to achieve one’s goal.  A person plans on different goals in life that will satisfy his personal, social, financial, and spiritual aspects of his life.  A person makes decisions in every step he/she takes in order to move on to the next stage of life.  What do I mean by this?  A baby strives to creep, crawl, stand, walk, and eventually have the capability to run.  The baby uses the capacity of his body for endurance, and with the aid of his parents, he will be able to achieve the success of having the power to run.  From the perception of a child, this is one success in the journey of life.  When a child enters school, he learns how to decide for himself.  He studies hard to achieve recognition, acceptance, and reward from his parents, teachers, and friends.  When the child reaches graduation day and passes with flying color, he experiences his own success.  If an adult finishes his studies, have a splendid career, and have a loving family, he becomes comfortable and satisfied in the life he had pursued.  That’s why a person will say that he is successful.  But how can we measure success?

Measuring Success 

We can never measure success with the use of tools and equipment, or even calculating success with the use of formulas.  It depends on how the person perceives and measures his own success.  If a person does not perceive himself to be successful in the future, then chances are, he will never reach his goals in life.  In order to become successful, you must remember to aim high and reach the top of your dream.  There is really no harm in dreaming.  Dreaming is free for everyone, so dream big while you can!  Life is like a car!  You need to learn how to drive it in order to reach your destination.  Learn from every step you take and grab the opportunity to change for the better.  Think positive and believe in yourself.  Everything will fall into place.  Life is full of challenges, so you need to become equipped with knowledge, dedication, and self-confidence.  Success only comes from within you!  Make your own destiny!

This has been a question asked by many people throughout the years - can success make you happy?  A lot of people can attest that, yes, it can make you happy, but then again, a lot of people can contradict those who said yes and instead say that success made them more miserable than ever.

Different Reactions to Success 

There is no denying the fact that our mental health affects a lot of things in our lives.  As such, our mental health also affects the way we feel about success.  There are people who are very successful, but with their success come depression.  Because of their depression, they forget to appreciate what they have.  Instead, they think that they still lack success, which, in turn, makes them want to have more.  The more they have, the more depressed they feel.  In this case, success will definitely not make a person happy.  To get past this, they will need professional help and medications to understand the way they feel and cope with it.

But then again, there are people who are happy with their success.  They are aware of how they got it and appreciate how they reached the pinnacle of their success.  These people are those who are content with what they have.  Because of this, they set new realistic goals to further enrich themselves, all the while thinking positive thoughts that they will achieve their new goals.  Their happiness is derived from the fact that they can conquer obstacles and make things happen, unlike those people above who think that success is equals to having more.  The more they have, the more they will want more of it that it is going to be a vicious cycle.  But for those who are comfortable and happy with their success, they understand that their happiness stems from the fact that they got what they aimed for and are happy with how they got it.

Success and Happiness 

For an emotionally balanced person, success can definitely make him happy because it felt good when he got what he has dreamed of, and in the process of getting there, there was progress happening in his life, and he knows and appreciates it.

Being happy with your success is not just about getting there, but it is also about the journey of how you got there.  It is the process that makes everything worthwhile and meaningful.